The taste profile was like none other I had tasted. Sour, salty, tangy, earthy and rich with a hidden creaminess that caresses your tongue. I sat at the dining table across from my husband licking my spoon at Domacin Wine Bar suddenly dreaming of creating …
This week is going to be a simple one easy recipe post kind of week. My husband, Jason, and I are celebrating our 10 year anniversary on Thursday so we’re skipping out of town to celebrate. We were married in the Van Dusen mansion in …
Inspiration comes in very odd forms sometimes. For example, I mixed up the main ingredients of this orange pomegranate holiday salad and was debating what sort of dressing would pair well with it. It happens that my daughters were making up some hot chocolate right next to me and the scent of the cocoa along with the scent of the oranges and pomegranate smelled divine together. So I got to thinking… what if I made a dressing that had cocoa in it? I love the taste of chocolate and oranges and so I began the dressing based on a traditional vinaigrette combining red wine vinegar, olive oil, orange zest and unsweetened cocoa powder. Cocoa is considered a health food these days so with that kind of rap, why not indulge! It makes this healthy salad seem a little bit naughty, but I promise you’ll still stay on Santa’s nice list.
Hey there! I seem to always serve a veggie tray with some sort of dip for every family gathering. It was no different this weekend when we hosted a party for my son’s three year birthday. Really, what’s not to love… they’re crunchy and perfectly …
Oh, how I LOVE hotdish. I mean, it’s a one dish meal with veggies, meat and usually a starch, warm and scrumptious to provide comfort and joy with every bite. Just the thought of a warm wintery hotdish (not to mention eating them) brings back a …
We had a great Thanksgiving with all of my husband’s family coming over to our house. It was an amazing feast with each of us providing a few signature dishes and a few new ones. In true form, my husband smoked our turkey again this year to absolute perfection. It’s my favorite way to have turkey. Flavorful, moist, delicious. I, of course, overestimated our turkey needs and therefore we have a few pounds of extra smoked bird. This doesn’t bother me as I have plenty of fun ways to use up our leftovers from turkey pot pie, shredded turkey in gravy over biscuits and this fun one, turkey tortilla soup!
Turkey tortilla soup can be made in less than a half hour so it’s perfect for these few days after the feast when you just want to be relaxing rather than cooking. Of course, this recipe works equally well with chicken. I topped it with fresh sliced avocados while my hubs and kiddos crushed many tortilla chips into theirs. However you top it, turkey tortilla soup is the perfect way to use up those leftover tasty turkey morsels of goodness.
Are you in charge of the cranberry sauce for next week’s feast? You can have this tart and tangy cranberry sauce whipped up in 15 minutes and it can be made ahead of time and frozen to just heat up for later. Make it this weekend and have …
It’s a comfort food kind of day. We’re in the process of selling our house so it’s been a challenge to keep the house clean and still manage to cook and so forth between showings. I swear, all I’m doing these days is …
Dark Chocolate. Oatmeal. Coooookieeees!!!!! (said in the slightly creepy voice of Cookie Monster from days of old). Nom, nom, nom, nom… I made a purposeful pause in my day to go ahead and make a mess. I needed dessert. Seriously NEEDED some dessert. It’s the perfect opportunity to convert one of my old favorite recipes into something more healthy yet it tastes ever as good as I remember. Maybe even better. Plus, it has sneaky veggies in it which I’ll never leak to the press (a.k.a. my kids). Better to keep that under wraps.
I keep reading numerous articles about how great dark chocolate is for you. The less sweetened the better. Maybe because I really want it to be healthy and therefore unconsciously seek out articles that hail its benefits. Who knows. It’s darn good and so I will eat it. In mass quantities. In these dark chocolate oatmeal cookies.
This recipe was actually an easy swaperoo of ingredients. It’s mostly oatmeal already so as long as you use certified gluten free oats, you can keep it gluten free if that’s how you roll. I switched out the butter for palm shortening (you can still use butter if you want) and the sugar was swapped for maple syrup and then I added some finely grated zucchini. Pureed pumpkin or finely grated apple would also work swell. Sweet chocolately goodness, I must have another! You too? I thought so.
You know what’s fun? Using goofy kitchen tools to make really cool (and really delicious) noodles. Or zoodles. Or whatever you want to call them. It’s kind of a childish fascination to morph food items into fun shapes with kitchen tools. It’s a lot like …
